Gov’t formally names Mislatel 3rd major telco

By Denise A. Valdez
Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT on Monday declared as the country’s third major telecommunications service provider the Mislatel Group of China Telecommunications Corp., Dennis A. Uy’s Udenna Corp. and Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp., as well as franchise holder Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, Inc. (Mislatel), almost two weeks after it was announced provisional winner for completing the selection process.
Udenna Vice-President for Corporate Affairs Adel A. Tamano received the confirmation order from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) en banc on Monday, which indicated its status as “new major player.”
The chairman of the auction’s oversight committee, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Acting Secretary Eliseo M. Rio, Jr., said in a briefing at the NTC office that Mislatel now has 90 days to submit its business and rollout plans, among other requirements, before it may receive its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) needed to operate as a telco.
“‘Yung bola nasa kanila na [The ball is in their hands]. And they have a maximum of 90 days. If they do not, for some reason, accomplish (submitting the necessary documents) in 90 days, that would disqualify them also,” Mr. Rio said.
Mr. Rio noted the realistic schedule for start of Mislatel’s commercial operations would be mid-2019.
Based on the auction’s terms of reference, the NTC is supposed to give the CPCN and the radio frequencies to the winning bidder after it completes evaluation of the submitted documents by the end of the 90-day period.
The government will award radio frequency bands of 700 megahertz (MHz), 2100 MHz, 2000 MHz, 2.5 gigahertz (GHz), 3.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz to the new telco.
Mr. Tamano, who is also Mislatel Consortium spokesman, told reporters that the group is eager to partner with smaller telco players as well as with incumbents PLDT, Inc. and Globe Telecom, Inc. “We’d like to invite all the stakeholders, everyone who wants to have better telecommunications in the Philippines, to work with us… In fact, even those bidders who either lost the bidding or who decided not to bid, we invite you to work with us… Let us partner. We will use your telecommunications resources for a faster rollout. In fact, even our competitors, Globe and (PLDT’s) Smart, we are ready to partner with you for the use of your tower facilities,” he said.
Mr. Rio expressed his opinion in a social media post on Saturday that to ensure the success of the “third telco” in competing with Globe and PLDT, it would help to seek partnerships with the likes of Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T), Converge ICT Solutions, Inc. and Sear Telecommunications, Inc.
PT&T and Sear are the two other bidders that were disqualified in the bidding for lack of requirements. Both are raising their cases to the courts.
Mislatel committed for its five years of operations a cumulative capital and operational expenditure of P257 billion, population coverage of 37.03% in its first year and 84.01% by the end of five years, and an average minimum broadband speed of 27 Megabits per second (Mbps) in its first year and 55 Mbps in the succeeding years.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls.